


I'll Keep Us Safe

by Ancalime1



Category: Age of Ultron - Fandom, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Incredible Hulk (2008)
Genre: Autistic Bruce Banner, BRUCE AND HULK ARE AUTISTIC IN THIS, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, He also needs a hug, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Oh also, SHIT I BETTER TAG THAT, autistic hulk, bruce is a cranky old man who needs to work on his self-loathing, hulk and bruce Talk It Out, hulk does too honestly, like when he leaves sokovia, okay there we go, this is post-aou btw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-04
Updated: 2019-07-04
Packaged: 2020-06-07 18:21:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19474744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ancalime1/pseuds/Ancalime1
Summary: After leaving Sokovia on the quinjet, Hulk and Bruce come to an agreement.





	I'll Keep Us Safe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [corvuss](https://archiveofourown.org/users/corvuss/gifts).



> I wrote part of this like forever ago and then finally decided to finish it. It's partly inspired by [this picture](https://radicles-art.tumblr.com/post/173675660985/this-is-super-scribbly-but-i-had-to-get-it-out-in) by @radicles-art, and partly inspired by my amazing boyfriend, @mutantbanner. Special thanks to him and @asgardianbrucebanner for beta'ing. Love you guys 3000 <3

_ “Where in the world can I go that I’m not a threat?” _

The words gnawed at the back of Hulk’s mind like maggots at rotted flesh. Banner was right. Banner was always right. The Earth hated them—hated  _ him _ —and with good reason. He would never, never forget what had happened in Johannesburg. He would never forget the terror in his victims’ eyes as they fled from him in his madness, scrambling over fallen buildings and crumpled bodies, their cheeks smeared with blood and brick dust. 

It was time, he thought, for him to leave.

And so he did. Hopped on a quinjet just as the fighting in Sokovia began to wane. A transmission pinged on one of the jet’s many screens, and suddenly Nat was there with him, pleading for him to come back. He could still remember the tears in her eyes as he flicked the screen off, cutting her transmission short.

_ I hope you understand… this was for the best.  _

He sat and watched as clouds gathered outside the viewport, crisp and white in the radiant sunlight. A tear rolled down his cheek, and he buried his head in his hands.

~

The first thing Bruce noticed was the utter cold. 

He gritted his teeth as chills gripped his skin. Typical stakes after a hulk-out, he thought, waking up naked and practically freezing to death. He pushed himself up off the ground and reached for something to throw around his shoulders. 

He froze at the sight of the viewport. He was in one of the quinjets—a common post-hulk-out destination as of late, it seemed. Only this time he was alone, sailing through some uncharted night sky. A single tear trickled down his face—inexplicable, unsolicited, as if it had waited for him to wake up.

Wiping his face, he rose and shuffled his way to the back of the jet, where a collection of the team’s personal effects were strewn around as if it were a college dormitory. Most of them were Tony’s: a few outfits, some chic, some of questionable taste. There was a stash of power bars, too, and a few pouches of water. He downed a couple of these and hastily slid into one of the more plain outfits available—a gray sweater, some black jeans, and a pair of wool socks. 

He spotted another item of interest as he donned his clothes. A tattered red cloak balled up unceremoniously beneath Tony’s makeshift wardrobe, no doubt belonging to Thor. He held it with trembling hands, the inexplicable thought of “worthiness” crossing his mind. He dismissed it almost instantly and threw the cloak round his shoulders, relishing in his teammate’s warmth. 

Okay. Time to figure out where the hell he was going.

He made his way to the jet’s dash and promptly froze, his fingers hovering above one of the keypads.  _ Wait,  _ came a voice in the back of his head—not his, but another’s. A low growl, barely audible yet carrying that loathsome familiarity.

“Why?” snapped Bruce out loud. He didn’t have time for this. They  _ both  _ didn’t.

_ We need to talk,  _ came the Hulk’s simple reply. The tone of his voice nearly caught Bruce off guard—if he hadn’t known any better, he would have thought that he sounded… sad. 

He willed the thought out of his conscience. He felt his guts writhe with discomfort, half dreading that he knew what it was that Hulk wanted to “discuss.” Of course. How could he not know? He’d thought of it ever since Johannesburg. Thought of it again at Clint’s, with Nat. 

“Fine,” he growled, settling himself down at the dash of the jet. He gritted his teeth and closed his eyes. 

It was dark. A ghostly haze of green surrounded him, swirling through his eyesight like fog after rain. He folded his arms in annoyance. “I’m here,” he called out into the darkness, spinning on his feet, half expecting the bulky brute himself to lunge out from the shadows and attack him where he stood. 

“I know,” came a voice—not the Hulk’s, but a smaller, softer voice. He squinted into the dark, willing his eyes to adjust.

“Who are you?” he said to the Darkness, his heart thrumming against his ribs. “Damn it, Hulk, where are you?”

The shadows parted as he spoke, peeling away like flower petals to reveal a child, scruffily dressed and wringing his hands. On his nose sat a pair of thick-lensed glasses, and a curtain of messy brown ringlets hung from his head. 

If it weren’t for the glimmering radioactive green in his eyes, he could have sworn the ghost of his past had come to haunt him.

“What the hell,” he breathed, taking a step backwards. 

“It’s me,” said the Hulk, bowing his head. “I’m here. I’m glad you’re here, too.”

“You can ditch the charade now,” snarled Bruce, his eyes stinging with tears. “Cut the shit. Didn’t you take enough from me already? My adult life wasn’t good enough for you, so you had to steal my childhood now too?”

“In fairness, it wasn’t that great a childhood,” said the Hulk dryly, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “But no. This is just—this is who I am,” he faltered. His eyes dropped to his shoes: a pair of scuffed up brown oxfords, too big and sophisticated for a small child. “This is me, beneath all the green, I guess. Though it’s hard for people to see that.”

“Gee, I wonder why that is?” said Bruce in a voice like barbed wire. “Now let me think. Oh! Maybe it’s the fact that you’ve murdered innocent people? Or  _ obliterated entire cities _ ? But no, you’re right, it’s just a misunderstanding. If only they could see the real you!”

The Hulk didn’t say anything, not at first. He tugged at the collar of his sweater and gave a hard swallow, as if holding back tears. “I didn’t ask to be made,” he said quietly, not meeting Bruce’s gaze.

“None of us ever do,” Bruce growled. “Now get over it. Move the hell on.”

The Hulk, however, didn’t seem to hear him. “I didn’t ask for any of this,” he continued, his voice trembling. “I don’t—I don’t want to hurt people, but—people always get hurt, don’t they?” he looked at Bruce, looked him dead in the eyes. Where he expected to see anger in those green irises, he saw hurt, confusion, the welling tears of a frightened child. “I can’t warn them, can’t tell them how I feel, can’t tell them how scared I am,” he fumbled. “I ca—I can’t make it stop…  _ I can’t make it stop!” _

The words tumbled precariously out of his mouth, like the onrush of a flood. There was no anger, though, none of Hulk’s signature rage—just sheer panic, the loss of control, the crumbling of the self. 

_ The feeling of Brian Banner towering over you with a belt in one hand and a bottle in the other. _

It struck Bruce like a premonition, and he fell to his knees, clutching his face. “Oh, god,” he gasped, his voice hoarse and ragged. “Oh, god. What have I become?”

They both sat like this, defeated, shoulders sunken and heads bowed. The Hulk stood not ten feet away from him, even more shrunken than before, his face buried in his hands. A laugh from an unseen source began to reverberate through this space, through his bones, through the very brain tissue within his skull. Within the quinjet in his corporeal form, a chill crawled up his spine. Even in death, his father had still gotten the better of him.

The Hulk cowered at the noise, his sparkling green eyes alight with fear. Bruce found his teeth clenching in spite of himself, and he rose, his face drawn in defiance. “No,” he said to the Darkness, willing his voice to be calm. “I’m not like you. This isn’t who I am.” His heart was pounding, battering against his rib cage, threatening to burst free. He sucked in a deep breath, looked at the younger version of himself, and exhaled. “Not anymore.”

The laughing ceased. Bruce shivered and let out a weary sigh, looking over the creases of his palms.  _ Okay,  _ he thought.  _ Time to prove it. _

He took a cautious step towards Hulk, then slowly raised his hands in a placating manner. “Hey,” he said softly, so as not to startle him. “It’s… it’s okay.” He took another step forward, then knelt before the boy so that he no longer towered over him. 

He sucked in a breath. “I… I won’t hurt you anymore. Promise.”

A single green eye poked out from behind a sleeve, and Hulk sniffled. “Pinkie promise?” he said in a tearful voice.

A small, rueful smile tugged at Bruce’s lips, and he extended his right pinkie towards the boy. There was another sniffle, and then the tug of a tiny finger pulling against his own. “Pinkie promise.”

Hulk stared at him wide-eyed, eyes framed by wide glasses and floppy brown curls. A tiny smile graced his own lips, sending a rush of warmth through Bruce’s chest. Pangs of guilt still gripped at him though, and his eyelids fluttered downward, suddenly unable to meet Hulk’s gaze. “Um,” he began, standing up and clapping his pockets. “So what’s the plan, then? We headed somewhere?” 

Hulk’s smile immediately vanished, like storm clouds rolling over the sun. “We can’t stay here,” he said in a quiet voice, staring at his palms.

Something lodged itself into Bruce’s throat just then. The guilt began to coil round his body, shackling him in place. “I know,” he said, a tear stinging his eye. 

“I’m sorry,” croaked Hulk, his own eyes filling with tears.

Bruce shook his head. “No. No. It’s not your fault.” He scrubbed his eyes with his sleeves and returned to Hulk’s level. “We’re going to figure this out, alright? You and me are gonna be okay.”

Another inhale. A deep breath, and then a soft “okay.”

Bruce smiled. “Okay,” he repeated, patting him on the shoulder. “So. What’s our play?”

Hulk didn’t answer right away. He shuffled his feet, as if the answer had been written somewhere on the ground beneath his shoes. “Well,” he began sheepishly, wringing his hands once again. “I think… I think that it’d be best if we left Earth.”

Bruce froze. “Left—the what?” he echoed, his arms dangling limp at his sides. “Hulk, we can’t—”

“We can,” insisted Hulk, eyes cutting through Bruce like a scalpel. “We have to. I—I don’t think we’re safe here anymore. No one is. Not with us around.”

Bruce massaged his forehead, knowing full well that he was right. “I’ll be honest, I’ve thought about this before,” he said in a strained voice. “But Hulk, you’ve gotta understand—this isn’t, this isn’t like a bullet to the head. We won’t come back from this.” The grip on the boy’s shoulder tightened, and for a second he had forgotten that the pulse beneath his fingers was his own.

“Hulk,” he said evenly, fighting to meet the boy’s eyes. “We’ll die out there.”

Hulk didn’t respond right away. His eyes were glued to his shoes, to those scuffed-up oxfords of his childhood. But when he spoke, he held Bruce’s gaze with the steady determination of someone who had made up their mind long ago. “We won’t,” he said, his eyes glinting. “I’ll keep us safe.”

If Bruce had any doubts to this point, they had all but disappeared. He didn’t know if Hulk could survive the depressurized, oxygen-deprived environment of space. He hadn’t really ever developed the gall—or the means—to try. But he wasn’t going to argue, not now. Not when they had finally reached an understanding.

“Okay, you win,” he said, throwing his hands up in resignation. He sighed, then allowed a bashful grin to cross his lips. “You know, I’ve always wanted to go to space.”

A small, knowing smile flickered across Hulk’s face. “I know,” he said softly, sitting next to Bruce. “Me too.”

Bruce almost scoffed at the thought. But here, in this form, this wide-eyed child-version of himself, it made sense. Hulk represented the child within him, the innocent joy, the fascination with the novel, the curiosity and wonder of the unknown. He had loved space ever since he was a child—loved it for its beauty and sense of sanctuary. Of  _ course _ Hulk would feel this way.

“Alright then,” said Bruce, giving him a gentle pat on the back. “I guess you and me are gonna go on a little trip then, huh?” 

The smile on Hulk’s face widened, and he jumped up, eyes sparkling with delight. “Uh-huh!” he said, happily fidgeting with his sleeves. “We’re going to space,” he sang, flapping his arms up and down, and wiggling till he was twirling in circles. “Space, space, space!”

Bruce’s face softened, and he couldn’t help but chuckle. Hard-ass as he was, even he had to admit this was pretty adorable. He could feel the giddiness surge through him too—the childish glee he had repressed for so long, masked behind anger and bitterness in order to survive. But at last he understood, and at last he was ready to let himself  _ feel _ .

“Well then. I think you oughta steer for awhile,” said Bruce, pushing himself to his feet. “You know, have the first look and all.” 

Hulk immediately stopped spinning, and gave him a sober look.“But what about you?” he whispered, eyes round.

“Eh. I’ll manage,” he said, stretching his arms out behind him. “I think I could use the rest anyways.” He gave Hulk a warm smile. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to leave you here alone.”

“I know you won’t,” said Hulk in a soft voice, a tear rolling down his cheek. 

Bruce stooped down and gently brushed the tear away. “Hey. It’s all gonna be okay now,” he murmured.

Hulk nodded, then tugged on his clothing and pulled Bruce down into a hug. Bruce himself nearly grunted in surprise, his hands hovering confusedly before finally settling onto the boy’s tiny back. There was the soft tickle of brown curls against his cheek, and the tiny thump of a heartbeat against his own. “We’ll be okay,” he echoed softly, closing his arms around him. “I promise we will be.”

“Okay,” whispered Hulk. He released Bruce and sniffled, then gave him a tearful smile. “Ready?” he asked.

Bruce smiled back, reclining into a criss-cross position on the floor. “Ready.”

The last thing he remembered was Hulk’s bright smile, and then the stars washed over him, beckoning him into dreams of planets and moons and drifting through stardust. 

**Author's Note:**

> As always, comments are greatly appreciated! Also feel free to hmu @cozyastronaut on tumblr if you'd like to talk <3


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